That would be a pretty fine distinction, considering that the list of "terrorist states" includes Iran and Syria, two stalwarts to which North Korea has been shipping missiles and other arms along with nuclear components and technology.
Former U.S. President George W Bush delisted North Korea in 2008 after it vowed to end its nuclear program, agreed to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and pledged to disable its nuclear plants.
The failure to elevate North Korea yet again appears all the more ironic considering that the U.S. goes on not only making statements but planning ever-more shows of force in the waters off South Korea's east and west coasts. The latest word from the Pentagon is that these exercises should make it "very, very clear that further military action will not be tolerated".
The exercises may also test North Korea's toleration as they get ever-closer to North Korea's shores. South Korean forces on Friday staged live-fire anti-submarine exercises in the Yellow Sea near the Northern Limit Line below which North Korean vessels are banned. It was just south of that line that the Cheonan went down in what's widely believed to have been an act of vengeance for an encounter in November of last year in which another corvette sent a North Korean vessel back to port in flames, killing most of those on board.
The danger is real along a line on maps that North Korea has always refused to recognize. Naval battles broke out in June 1999 and again in June 2002 in which sailors on both sides were killed. Nobody expects another flare-up quite yet in the same waters, but there's no doubt North Korea was not bluffing when it promised retaliation by "the most powerful means" if a South Korean boat happened to fire on one of its vessels across the line.
The real test, though, will be if the United States finally sends ships of its own into the Yellow Sea for exercises with the South Koreans. Like a giant club, the aircraft carrier USS George Washington poses a threat that the U.S. can summon any time as a reminder of overwhelming firepower.
The U.S. has held back on sending the George Washington into the Yellow Sea for fear of upsetting the Chinese, who view any war games in that large body of water as too close to their own shores.
The Pentagon has declared, though, that the carrier "will exercise in the Yellow Sea, in the West Sea" but is deliberately vague about setting a date. It's safe to assume that the next time the George Washington approaches the Korean Peninsula, it will not be to repeat exercises of two weeks ago in which the carrier led a flotilla of 20 vessels off the east coast.
It's also safe to assume, when the George Washington does hove into view in the Yellow Sea, that the Chinese and North Koreans will fire off volley after volley of intimidating rhetoric. Previous bloody incidents suggest that tempers can boil over any time.
The point is the George Washington represents a tool in negotiations that are slowly determining a regional balance of power between China on one side and the U.S. and Japan on the other with the Korean Peninsula caught in between.
The U.S. can calibrate the decision to send the George Washington, and the destroyers with Aegis-class counter-missile systems that will go with it, into the Yellow Sea in accordance with the level of perceived Chinese cooperation.
James Steinberg, U.S. deputy secretary of state, suggested this strategy when he told a forum in Washington that the only reason China was "suffering the indignity of exercises close to its shores" was its "support for North Korea and unwillingness to denounce their aggression".
In other words, if China would just be a little more willing to hold North Korea responsible for the attack on the Cheonan, possibly by innuendo and pressure on North Korea if not by actually signing onto the results of the investigation, there might be no reason to send the George Washington into the Yellow Sea.
This game of military diplomacy, though, carries more than the immediate threat of a burst of gunfire. Somewhat longer term, China is said to be coming up with a missile that can actually sink an aircraft carrier as mighty as the George Washington.
It's called the Dong Feng 21D, it's got a range of 1,500 kilometers and it's said to be remarkably accurate — far more so than the short and mid-range missiles that North Korea exports to Middle Eastern clients and periodically tests in the Yellow Sea. The Chinese are not going to fire off a Dong Feng in the near future, but awareness of China's long-term ability to go after the George Washington is sure to give planners pause lest they make a habit of venturing too close to the Chinese mainland for the comfort of its leaders.
Tensions are rising, moreover, for yet another reason — the United States deal to sell $6 billion in arms to Taiwan, a purchase that has no other real purpose than to defend the island redoubt against Chinese attack.
Not that China is brimming with desire to go to war. In fact, the Chinese have signed a trade agreement with Taiwan and are keen to pursue a deal for a free trade agreement with South Korea and Japan. The result of all this bargain-basement free trading would be to bind Northeast Asia together in a manner that could render military rivalries obsolete.
Obsolete, that is, for all but the U.S. The nightmare of American planners is a Chinese wall around Northeast Asia, a barrier to U.S. exports that already are suffering miserable trade imbalances with all the countries in the region.
In commercial alliance with U.S. military allies Japan and South Korea, however, China would be all the more likely to rein in whatever designs North Korea' s leader Kim Jong-Il might have to demonstrate the North's credentials as a terrorist state in another shock attack.
ShareThis
